


Your Mind Is Like An Unmade Bed

by Kian



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Reality, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-25
Updated: 2014-03-25
Packaged: 2018-01-16 23:13:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1365268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kian/pseuds/Kian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An abandoned story idea: </p><p>In a universe with no supernatural things going bump in the night, Stiles attends a prestigious private school on scholarship where he makes a new almost-best friend, Derek Hale. A decade-long slow build of strained friendships, broken hearts, and unfortunate events ensues. Bad things happen. Several times. Finally, at the end, good things start to happen too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Mind Is Like An Unmade Bed

**Author's Note:**

> This summary wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it out. It needs lots of cleaning up, retooling, and plot development, but I am letting it go as I lost interest in its source material. This was not intended to be fluffy or funny, with a happy ending only after a whole lot of seeming hopelessness. There are no werewolves, no supernatural elements, just a lot of humans running around making poor decisions until they finally get their heads out of their asses. 
> 
> I even have a whole soundtrack for this thing (it's at the end). I won't be writing it, but I figure I'll send the plot bunny out into the universe for the rest of you to enjoy.

Stiles and Derek have grown up together, best friends at the special prep school Stiles’ test scores got him into on scholarship in third grade. Scott still goes to public and he is Stiles’ other and bestest best friend (don’t tell Derek!). Balancing the two worlds is fine until middle school, when Derek’s bout with puberty elevates him from slightly-dorky kid to sporty class royalty. They’re still friends, but it’s tapering off without Derek noticing, especially when he starts dating Paige. Then it’s just momentum holding them together, not so much actual time spent or interests shared outside of school.

Of course, Stiles finds himself falling for Derek, but stands aside and says nothing because Derek really likes Paige and she’s a nice girl and getting between all that for nothing isn’t worth it. So he buries his feelings. When Derek pushes him on who _he_ could have a crush on, he picks Lydia Martin because everyone has a crush (even Stiles, albeit a platonic one) on Lydia and nobody will push him to confess to her because of her boyfriend, Jackson.

Then Paige dies in an accident and Derek is decimated. Stiles is on best friend duty support, like Derek was for him a few years earlier with his mom, and it’s just not the right time to confess. And it keeps being the wrong time for a long time. But Derek’s also pulling away from everyone, hardly available emotionally or physically, and just throws himself into his teams and his school work (the only times when Stiles ever sees him outside of school anymore). Of course, Mrs. Hale and Laura (who’s gone off to college now) still call him Derek’s best friend, love on him in public, etc. It’s so awkward and painful, but Stiles figures he shouldn’t burst anyone’s bubble, least of all Derek’s. Scott, Heather, Allison, and his other public school friends are worried about him and angry about what Derek’s doing to Stiles, but he tells them it’s okay, don’t worry about it.

Things seem to have hit a level of achingly depressing normalcy again a few years later, when suddenly Derek isn’t around at all. Gets secretive, completely cuts Stiles off and misses study sessions with him left and right without explanation.

Lydia encounters him during this time, talks to him for the first time. She tells him that she knows she’s been his beard for years, that she’s worried about Derek too. He’s the only guy in the school besides Danny she can talk to without Jackson freaking out, after all. “Cause he’s so fucked up,” Lydia rolls her eyes. She starts hanging around with him in the library while he waits for Derek to no-show. They become tentative friends, though only in the library away from everyone else.

Stiles worries, but he doesn’t really even know Derek anymore, doesn’t feel like he can say anything. Maybe this is just the end, come a little sooner than he expected (Stiles was planning on losing Derek’s number and moving on in college — he doubted Derek would notice). And then he sees Derek stumbling, blind drunk, out of a seedy dive bar one Saturday night with one of the swim team coaches, Kate Argent. They make out, she gets Derek off, then leaves him to get the car. Derek sees Stiles and they argue briefly, Derek begging Stiles not to tell anyone. Stiles promises, but he doesn’t like it.

Suddenly, he’s in on this horrible secret, Derek so relieved he has a ready excuse in Stiles, etc. And it’s just fucking killing Stiles. He’s telling Stiles all the horrible stuff Kate is having him do like it makes him so mature. They fight about that one and Derek reminds Stiles of his promise. Stiles tells him he can keep using him as an excuse, but to leave Stiles alone from now on. He doesn’t want to hear it.

Lydia finds him just after, and she comforts Stiles. Promises to keep an eye out for Derek from her end, to see if she can’t dig something up about the Kate situation, making Stiles give her Allison’s number (“her mom has that boutique in the city, perfect excuse. been meaning to shake up my social circles anyway.”).

Things keep on until the night Derek shows up while his dad’s working a gruesome hit and run — a hit and run that Kate pulled with Derek in the car. Derek and Kate need an alibi, need Stiles to lie to his Dad if it comes to that. Stiles has never seen Derek so torn up — but he doesn’t know if he can do it. Lie to his dad? He tells Derek he won’t cover for Kate, but that he’ll cover for Derek. Derek eventually leaves.

Then...he sees Kate hitting — beating — Derek behind the gym the next day, because Derek couldn’t get Stiles to agree. Stiles jumps in, confronts Kate, gets slapped himself and warned to stay out of the way or else. She leaves him there to help Derek get cleaned up. Derek begs Stiles not to say anything. Lydia helps Stiles cover up the bruise in the bathroom.

Only, Stiles runs into Laura at the grocery store that afternoon, still boggling and scared and unable to hide it. Laura pulls him aside and gets it out of him. She says she’s going to tell her mom, they’ll confront Derek together. Stiles begs her not to tell Derek who they heard it from. Laura agrees, but says that Derek will probably suspect anyway. She says, “He’ll forgive you, when he can see what’s going on. That’s what best friends do.” Stiles tells her they haven’t been friends in a long, long time. “Then why are you still helping him?” He can’t say. “Oh, Stiles.” He leaves, after getting her to promise again.

His dad is waiting for him when he gets home and he can’t keep it to himself anymore. There’s still a bruise from Kate’s slap, after all, and his dad knows how to spot makeup covering bruising. He spills it to his dad and his dad promises to handle Kate, lets him stay home until it’s all handled.

Kate disappears and there’s a manhunt. His public school friends come around and Allison promises to keep an ear to the ground. And Kate? Kate tries to burn the Hale house down while they’re all sleeping, knowing Derek is inside under house-arrest while he waits to testify against her (his mom and Laura bullied him into it, surprisingly easily once he learns the girl Kate hit — Julia [Jennifer] —  is in a coma).

They catch her just after Christmas, when Allison mentions missing chemicals and guns from their garage to Lydia, who tells the Sheriff in turn. The whole Hale clan was over for the holidays, but thankfully, the worst hurt is their Uncle Peter, who had a falling beam crush him while he was trying to get one of the kids out of the house. Gerard Argent is also arrested as an accessory to attempted murder, for providing Kate with the materials and the plan.

Stiles begs his dad and is allowed to transfer for second semester of his junior year to Scott’s public school. He can’t face his old school with everyone blaming him for what happened to Derek and his family, not knowing the full story. Lydia’s influence can’t stop Jackson from spreading rumors after Derek is kicked off the team just before championships, which they lose without him.

Stiles avoids all Hales, even when they come to the house to see him. It’s never Derek, after all. Derek is just missing from the world. Word on the street is that they’ve gotten him a private tutor for homeschooling for the foreseeable future, under the watchful eye of Talia and the recovering Peter.

It’s over the summer that Laura (just graduated and moved back home for work) tracks Stiles down at his summer job and corners him. Derek needs his best friend. Everybody else has dropped him like a hot rock, but Derek needs _Stiles_ not to hate him. “You should see him. He visits the coma girl every week. And your mom. Just apologizes, over and over again, for hurting you both.” Stiles is reeling. He still loves him, but it hurts too much. He can’t deal with it. He’s sorry.

Derek emails the following September. He’s started up at their old school again and was surprised Stiles wasn’t there too. He’d been looking for him everywhere and Lydia had been the one to tell him Stiles was gone. (“You guys became friends? That’s good news, right? You know she broke up with Jackson last year.”) The reason he was looking for Stiles — officially — was because his therapist thought he needed to apologize properly. Unofficially, he’s missed Stiles and wants to start over on their friendship, make up all those bad months with Kate to his best friend.

Stiles never responds to any of Derek’s emails, except once to say “You’re forgiven. I forgive you for everything. Just be happy, from now on.”

Scott, Heather, and the others (even Lydia) help to keep Derek away for the rest of their senior year, and Derek takes the hint (Lydia may have clued him in on Stiles’ being hurt by Derek’s actions long before Kate ever came into the picture; she has “eyes, Stiles. Anybody could see that friendship wasn’t exactly a two way street.”). Derek still keeps writing emails, though it becomes apparent he doesn’t think Stiles is reading them. He’s lonely. Nobody talks to him at school and his golden boy status is gone. Lydia takes some pity on him (so does Danny), but refuses to talk about Stiles with him or carry messages, so that leaves the emails. He starts community service at the preserve visitor center in the time he used to play sports. Makes a couple of new friends (Erica, Boyd, and Isaac) on the job, but still misses Stiles. Stiles reads the emails ravenously.

He’s moving into his dorm at UC Berkeley (full ride!) when he sees the stupid wolf stuffed animal he gave Derek when they were 8 sitting on the bed on the other side of the room. He’s frozen. Just absolutely frozen in place. He’s “been over” Derek for a while, even dated Heather for a hot minute.

Only he’s not. He’s so not. He was going to work on that in college. Lydia’s the only one who could see through him on that anyway, and she’s on the other side of the country at MIT now. (She expects weekly Skype dates to stay apprised on his doings. How she became queen bee of their group still baffles him.)

And then, from behind him, “Stiles?”

And that’s Derek in the doorway, holding a duffle bag and staring at Stiles like he’s seen a ghost. Laura’s coming up behind him, sees Stiles, tosses her box inside, and yanks the door closed, trapping them together.

It’s awkward. Still. And then Derek is hugging Stiles. So, so hard.

And Stiles? Stiles is hugging him back. So, so hard.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Don’t get rid of me. I’ll transfer rooms, but please don’t avoid me anymore.”

And Stiles? “I forgive you. I forgave you. You hurt me so much, Derek. You hurt me.”

“I know. I know. I know.”

“You don’t. I loved you, Derek. I loved you so much…”

And then...explanations. Agreement to be roomies (convenience, right? we already know whether we snore or not), and to try being friends again.

They don’t date other people. They try, but they don’t click with anyone else. They don’t tell each other that, though. Not in so many words.

And finally, in the middle of their Junior year, still roommates, best friends again, Lydia and Laura beyond exasperated with their glacial pace, Derek leans over one night and kisses him. And it’s sweet and perfect. And they try it again. And it’s still perfect. And it stays perfect for the rest of their thoroughly ridiculous lives.

* * *

 

* * *

**Soundtrack:**

Digital Daggers — Human Emotion

Josh Pyke — The Beginning and the End of Everything

Our Broken Garden — Nightsong

Anya Marina — Notice Me

Anya Marina — Destroy Everything (*title)

Snow Ghosts — And the Moon

Imogen Heap — You Know Where To Find Me

Bear Lake — Tasted

Bon Iver — The Wolves


End file.
